Conventionally, provision of information pertaining to items of mail by the mailer to the postal service has been conducted by means of printing or writing this information in a paper-based format. For example, a statement of mailing listing the contents of a submission of mail inducted into the postal system has conventionally been provided by the mailer to the postal service in a paper-based format. Statements of induction defining the set of submissions inducted into the postal system as part of a single hand-over transaction have similarly conventionally been provided in a paper-based format. Likewise, the postage indicium printed on an item of mail conventionally provides information on payment by the mailer for the postal services provided in return in a format which is restricted by the use of the item of mail itself as the medium for providing this information.
On the other hand, over the last couple of decades, there has been considerable progress in interchange of accounting information by electronic means between a secure accounting system of the mailer and the reconciliation and support systems associated with the postal service. For example, postage metering systems are now widespread in which payment for postal services is conducted by logging postage value used in one or more accounting registers of the accounting system at the mailer's location, these accounting registers being reconcilable by the postal services by establishment of an electronic connection with the reconciliation systems of the postal service, for example by connection over a public-switched network. Various of such systems for transferring accounting information by electronic means between the mailer and the postal service are known as remote meter re-setting systems.
Interchange of information between the mailer and the postal services in a paper-based format has disadvantages associated with accidental introduction of errors into the information at various stages along its path between the mailer and the postal service, the possibility of fraud (which may be considered a deliberate, rather than an accidental error) and inefficiencies resulting from transferring information from a paper-based format into electronic form upon entry into a computer database, which is both costly and time consuming. Minimising the percentage of information interchanged between the mailer and the postal service in a paper-based format is therefore highly desirable. On the other hand, the conventional situation in which some information is currently exchanged between mailer and postal service in a paper-based format and some information is currently exchanged in an electronic-based format makes it difficult to convert the parts of the mailer—postal service interface which are paper-based into an electronic-based format without having a knock-on effect upon the parts of the mailer—postal service interface which are already electronic-based.